Ode to TJ

What a week. It has been such a week. Monday was incredibly hard. I was sitting down just now to post a recipe and I just felt like I couldn’t do that without first posting about TJ. He was a part of our little familia and life is weird without him.

Monday. I got baby girl up from a nap, I called the dogs over, I got leashes on them, got baby in the stroller, and off we went. Down the street. A gorgeous day. Perfect weather. We walked all the time. Our neighborhood who most everyone in our town refers to as “the hood” and my husband and I roll our eyes because it is just a neighborhood full of people. People as real as anyone else.

Baby girl has gotten into this new wonderful phase where she is obsessed with dogs and cats. She gets so excited when she sees them. As we were walking, I knew we were about to pass a house where a Rottweiler is always tied up in the front yard. We have walked by many times and there has never been an issue. I was not nervous. I was not nervous until that dog came running out at us. It broke the wire it was tied up with and ran straight at us. My first instinct was to push the stroller as far away from it as possible. As I did this I looked back and saw it had my TJ.

I will spare the details because it is not pretty. In fact it is one of the most traumatic, horrible things I have had to witness. Life was a blur the next few hours. It involved screaming and yelling for help, language barriers with the owner as I cried and hovered over my dog’s very still body, a ride with a stranger to the pet hospital, lots of crying, a stressful baby who didn’t understand what was happening, waiting for over an hour to know the fate of my dog, husband rushing home from work on his bike to grab our car and meet us at the hospital with our other dog, Sadie, getting the news, seeing the x-ray images, hearing the severity of what that dog did to ours, saying goodbye, anger, riding home with his tiny body in a cardboard box, watching my husband dig a hole in the backyard, coming together and putting the tiny box in the hole, some words were said, and then it was over. How did this all happen in a span of hours? It’s crazy how different life can be literally from one minute to the next.

TJ. I had him for almost 13 years. He was quirky as they come but definitely one of the cutest little creatures I have ever laid my eyes on. Just seeing his little face brought me so much joy. He is the dog I begged my parents for for years. Things I will never forget about him are the way he would “sneak” ever so gently under low surfaces such as chairs or dressers, rubbing back and forth slowly because he liked how it tickled his fur. The way he loved hiking trails and could keep up with the best of them even though he was a 9 pound yorkie. His name was the first word our daughter said. No joke. We went to get her up from a nap one day, he came trailing in behind, and she said “TJ!” as clear and happy as ever. The way he would know if I was sad and would sit next to me until I felt better. He was just there. He was there for almost 13 years of my life. Life just isn’t the same without his presence but I know we will find our new normal. I am so thankful for all the time we got with him. Cheers to you, TJ Bear Wookie Pants Bulldozer Stelly.